On the second day of Mr. Rayner’s absence Sarah came to the schoolroom, saying that a gentleman wished to speak to me. In the drawing-room I found Mr. Laurence Reade. “I have come on business with Mr. Rayner; but, as they told me he was out, I ventured to trouble you with a commission for him, Miss Christie.” “I don’t know anything about business, especially Mr. Rayner’s,” I began doubtfully. “Perhaps Mrs. Rayner--” “Oh, I couldn’t trouble her with such a small matter! I know she is an invalid. It is only that two of the village boys want to open an account with the penny bank. So I offered to bring the money.” He felt in his pockets and produced one penny. “I must have lost the other,” he said gravely. “Can you give me change for a threepenny-piece?” I left him and returned with two halfpennies. He had forgotten the names of the boys, and it was some time before he remembered them. Then I made a formal note of their names and of the amounts, and Mr. Reade examined it, and made me write it out again in a more business-like manner. Then he put the date, and wrote one of the names again, because I had misspelt it, and then smoothed the paper with the blotting-paper and folded it, making, I thought, an unnecessarily long performance of the whole matter. “It seems a great deal of fuss to make about twopence, doesn’t it?” I asked innocently. And Mr. Reade, who was bending over the writing-table, suddenly began to laugh, then checked himself and said-- “One cannot be too particular, even about trifles, where other people’s money is concerned.” And I said, “Oh, no! I see,” with an uncomfortable feeling that he was making fun of my ignorance of business-matters. He talked a little about Sunday, and hoped I had not caught cold; and then he went away. And I found, by the amount of hemming Haidee had got through when I went back to the schoolroom, that he had stayed quite a long time.